(Closed) Guess the breed!

So we adopted our little Frankie from a shelter and know that him mom was a pure breed black lab but have no idea what his dad was.

I would love to get him breed tested but that idea was nixed due to costs (how much does it cost? has anyone had it done?)

The shelter said dad might be either great dane or boxer. But he is only 20 pounds at 3 months which i think is too small for great dane. And to me he doesnt look like a boxer. I think he might look like a little pit bull.

I think it’s too soon to tell—you’ll have to see how he grows into himself. He’s super cute, though!

We’re pretty sure our dog is a Dane/Lab mix, and he’s not huge—a lean 80 pounds full grown, which is bigger than most labs but nowhere near as big as many Danes. We’ll probably never know for sure, but the main indications of Dane in the mix are big droopy jowls and body form (much taller with longer more muscular legs, different form than lab)—neither of which would show up yet with your pup. Ditto for any pit in the mix….if he grows up to be stocky and shorter with a shorter muzzle, those could be indicators, but again, too early to tell. That’s the frustration! 🙂 I’ve also known purebred lab puppies who look roughly like that, too. It’s the challenge of the Big Black Dog (which, incidentally, is one of the least adopted animals out there, so kudos for taking one home!)

Here’s our guy all grown up, by the way (though unfortunately we didn’t have him as a tiny pup so no photos for comparison).

FYI, there was an interesting article on NPR’s site yesterday about the DNA tests, which basically said they’re still novelty science and not worth much yet. They may help narrow down the breeds, but right now they’re not closely regulated, so each lab chooses which genetic markers it interprets as which breed—so you could do the test with different labs and get different results, if they consider a specific sequence to indicate a different breed than another lab does. So if you do it, it should just be for fun, knowing that you might not get much clarification on anything. (Still, I know people who’ve done it for fun and had a blast, since they didn’t care what the result was—just interesting to know what could be in the mix!)